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On the Outskirts of Seoul
The moment Juhoon steps out of the car, he’s embraced by the humidity and the cold. From where he’s standing, he can see the Namsan mountains on the far left of his vision, and his mom was right, they do look pretty cool.
Juhoon stretches his body, enjoying the burn before allowing his muscles to recoil again. He’s looking at the house, at their new house.
It's a nice looking house, he supposes. Juhoon doesn’t know much about houses but this one seems pretty alright. It has got two floors and a bit of a front yard, and by what his mom said, also a really nice backyard, where he can play footy and nap on the grass while soaking sun rays all he wants.
It seems nice enough, Juhoon muses. Harmless. This time it’ll be alright, he thinks, as he opens the trunk of the car to get their baggage out. It’s gonna be just fine.
Juhoon can’t exactly pinpoint when it started. His childhood is blurry, quite as if a big blob of black pen ink was dropped on that exact part of his brain and he just can’t really see anything clearly. He remembers some bits and pieces of his father, how happy his mom looked, how happy they all were. Then he remembers his father dying and for some reason everything gets easier to recall from there on.
Juhoon didn’t know they were ghosts back then, didn’t know much about anything, but he knew he saw things that shouldn’t have been there. He had seen weird things before, shadows moving far too fast and people who were there one second just to not be on the next, but he simply refused to think about it. too much trouble, too much of a hassle. It's easier to pretend it’s just a one off, to act as if it’s your brain playing a prank on you instead of believing the irrational.
It wasn’t until he started seeing the ghosts, really seeing them, at age twelve that he realized what really was going on.
The first time, Juhoon was walking outside on the back of their apartment building—his day to take the trash out—when he saw it. It looked like a woman, quite young, walking around with a bohemian hippie look from the 60’s.
Juhoon knows she wasn’t a performer or anything like that because:
- He didn’t live on that part of town,
- What the fuck would she had been doing all alone on a back alley, and
- He could see pretty well how the morning light shined through her chest.
Juhoon did the only rational thing he could when she approached him and asked what time it was. He dropped the black plastic bag, yelled at the top of his lungs and ran away as fast as he could.
It got easier to handle after the first time.
Even though his mom was worried sick and wouldn’t stop fretting over him, insisting maybe he had a PTSD episode or maybe his blood pressure got so low that he saw things. They eventually forgot about it. Moved on.
Until Juhoon walked right through another one, two weeks later.
He didn’t yell this time, but he did kick the guy on the shin as hard as he could before running away.
The moment Juhoon steps inside the house, he knows there’s something up with it. His body tenses on its own and he knows he should put an extra effort, he knows how much this change means to his mom but he literally can’t force his legs to move.
It's the same feeling he always gets, a feeling that got ingrained into his life more and more by each year he lived on.
A chill that runs through his entire body, no matter how hot the weather actually is, it still makes him have goose bumps—and it’s not just that, it’s not just a sensation. It's a feeling that starts low on the pit of his stomach that there’s something wrong, something off, something that doesn’t belong but he can’t quite pinpoint what it exactly is.
Juhoon’s mom stops walking and looks at him, her arms filled with two cardboard boxes labeled as kitchen supplies with Juhoon’s ugly handwriting.
“Are you okay, darling?” she asks, all worried, eyebrows scrunching up on her forehead.
Juhoon forcefully shakes his head and steps inside the house, dragging the huge luggage behind with him.
“All good, it’s just chilly.”
The look she gives him tells him she knows that is a lie, but she doesn’t probe any further.
Juhoon drags the bag behind him inside the house and steps outside quickly again, trying to forget the feeling.
Some things are easier said than done.
Juhoon usually runs away from it, actually. Avoids potential ghost scenes. Old buildings, abandoned houses, deserted streets. The problem is when the ghost realizes Juhoon can see them, they just won’t leave him be.
From the knowledge he was able to gather during his seventeen years of life, he’s probably not alone on this—and by this he means, seeing ghosts and being forced to deal with them.
There’s probably someone out there who also has to deal with this shit on a daily basis just like him, but so what?
What matters is right now, and right now? He’s alone on his own, having to deal with all this, like he always been so far. Nothing changes.
Juhoon's mom is a nurse. She works full-time at the hospital, usually on the night shift, which fits really well with Juhoon’s ghost-hunting schedule. He actually feels a little bit guilty about thinking like this, but well.
They moved because this was a better job, better pay—it wasn’t that far away from his old city, just a few hours by car, but it was a smaller town.
Juhoon didn’t want to come, not really, but this is not the sort of thing he could’ve kept his mom from. They are all each other got. Family doesn’t work like that. So he accepted, nodded and smiled all at the right times, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s been barely a few days and he already feels the absence of his best friends in his life so much it’s unreal.
“This place is haunted as fuck” is the first thing Juhoon says when Keonho picks up the phone.
Juhoon is playing with a string on his jeans (he fell and ripped it when he was chasing a girl who insisted she had to kill her best friend so they could be really together forever), looking outside the window from his bedroom.
“Well damn, hello to you too. I've been fine, thank you very much; so has Seonghyeon. He says hi.”
Juhoon rolls his eyes and gets up, walking closer to the glass, pushing the curtains a bit to the side, looking curiously down at the backyard.
“Dude, I'm serious! There’s like, something going on here. I can feel it. Mom said she looked up the history of the house and she said it was clean but it doesn’t feel clean at all.”
Keonho sighs over the line and Juhoon can hear the sound of a chair moving, before the line gets stable again.
“You’re being paranoid again.” Keonho tells him, the sound of something being opened on the background. Probably Seonghyeon eating his third bar of snickers. Juhoon's heart hurts from how much he already misses them.
Juhoon lets out a dejected sigh, and flops down on his bed, the curtains flapping against the wall.
“Maybe I am.” he looks at the ceiling and thinks about how he wants to glue some glow in the dark stars, about how they remind him of home. “Tell me about your day.”
Keonho hums a sound out, quiet and tender, like he knows, and he does. He really does. He doesn’t need Juhoon to spell it out, to say I miss you I love you please it hurts.
They haven’t been friends for all those years for nothing.
So Keonho laughs, puts the phone on voice speaker, and starts going on about the latest fight Seonghyeon got himself into.
Juhoon listens to it all, with a smile on his face, staring at the ceiling. Glow in the dark stars will have to do the job just fine.
His Bedroom, Somewhere in Seoul
Juhoon knows he’s about to see a ghost before he sees one, he knows he’s about to find another translucent fucker right behind the door to his room. He hates it, hates how it’s out of his control, how it’s not his choice, how he has no say on all of this.
He puts his hand on the handle and opens it anyway, before stepping inside the room and closing the door behind him.
And man, were his instincts right.
There’s a tall blonde guy standing near the wall of his room, staring at the mirror in what can only be described as awe.
Juhoon sighs and steps further into the room.
The ghost looks at him, his eyebrows rising high on his forehead. He looks very confused.
“Listen.” Juhoon starts, staring the ghost down. “I'm sorry about what happened to you, but this room is mine. So if you would kindly fuck off, that would be greatly appreciated, thanks!”
The boy just looks at him and frowns, even more confused. He’s staring at his own hands now like he’s entranced by how he can see through himself if the light hits him just right.
Juhoon takes an annoyed breath and walks closer, right until he’s near the ghost’s personal space.
“I’m only going to repeat myself once. Get out, this is my room.”
The ghost still stares at him with furrowed brows, visibly confused.
“Adiós? Ciao? Au revoir? Sayonara? Will you get the fuck out of my room?” Juhoon tells him again, an impatient timber clear on his voice.
Now the ghost is finally paying attention to him, eyes wide, looking a bit shocked, maybe even a bit hurt, and Juhoon thinks, good.
The boy leaves then, on something that resembles a whirlwind, opening the window so hard that he manages to get it stuck.
Juhoon sighs and closes the drapes, too lazy to deal with it right now. Just his luck.
On the next day, Juhoon really, really had a lot of things to do. He had to unpack all he could on the house and organize as much as he was able to because his mom was already going to work and it would be just brutal to let it all for her to do. So he spent the whole time unpacking, putting the things into place, shoving the boxes to the yard, rinse and repeat all over again.
Since his mom was doing day shifts to get acquainted with the hospital during the first week, he had the whole house to himself before school came back. Juhoon slept in late, had a glass of strawberry yogurt and a bowl of cornflakes for breakfast before finally doing his chores.
And he’d never would've guessed it, but fucking hell, moving houses is so much work.
So it’s true to say he was exhausted when it got to around 7pm, getting up from the living room floor, boxes and bubble wrap everywhere, stretched his hands high up over his head before finally checking his phone.
His mom had sent a message, explaining she’d be staying late to go out with co-workers. He just sent a quick okay, have fun, be safe.
Keonho had also sent him a bunch of snaps from during the day. Seonghyeon sleeping with a pencil stuck on his ear, the stars on his own bedroom ceiling (Juhoon took a screenshot of that one) and a video of both of them being chased by an angry goose. He also sent a bunch of messages at around 3pm asking about the Netflix password just to end the twenty-eight messages with a oh nvm i found it inside my phone case lol.
Juhoon starts towards the stairs, his friends’ smile on his mind. Some of the things he misses he can’t even quite name.
The moment he steps through the doorstep of his room, he knows something is out of place.
This time? The same ghost half hidden by the side of his bed. Juhoon sighs.
He opens his mouth to say something when he hears a sob. He closes it, looks at the boy on the side of his bed. Juhoon knows what he should do: Just kick him out, absolutely merciless.
The sobs get louder, and Juhoon, with his big bleeding heart, can’t help but feel sorry for the ghost.
“Hey…” he asks tentatively, still on the doorstep. “Are you okay?”
He's met with the sound of more sobs and snot being blown out of a nose before the ghost speaks up.
“I don’t know what happened to me,” he sniffles out, voice tiny and tearful. “I have no idea what happened to me at all. I just woke up here, and I’ve never even been to this place before, I don’t even know where this place is, but I'm stuck and I can’t leave. And you keep being mean to me.”
Juhoon stares at him and feels awkward—also guilty.
“…Hey. I'm sorry if I sounded…harsh.” Juhoon tells him, walking closer and then kneeling in front of where the boy is glued to the wall, between his bedside table and the bed. ‘It's just that your kind isn’t very warm towards me, so I never am sure of what I'm supposed to do.”
One eye peeks out from two folded arms over knees at him, bright eyes with flecks of brown.
“My kind?” he’s asked, the curiosity on the boy’s voice as clear as day.
“Yeah? Ghosts?”
“Oh. Is that what I am?”
Juhoon is staring at the boy. There's tear tracks on his face and it looks wet, eyes watery like a dam about to give out. He looks real, even though Juhoon knows for sure that he is not.
“Yeah, man. You’re a ghost.”
The boy makes a humming noise, like he’s asserting this information inside his head. “So, who are you?” he asks, snapping Juhoon out of his trance.
Juhoon shakes his head and says, “I'm Juhoon.”
The boy flashes a sunshine smile.
“Martin.”
After he found a sobbing ghost on his bedroom floor, Juhoon sort of felt like it was a moral and/or job obligation to talk with him—to be kind, or whatever you’re supposed to do when you’re stuck with a ghost.
So he did talk to Martin; explained some things Martin asked (Why am i here? Does this mean I'm dead? What about my family? What is there on the afterlife? To which Juhoon’s answers were I don’t know, probably, I don’t know and I don’t know) and tried to help him remember anything, anything at all as to why he was stuck in a house he never went before with a boy just his age he never had met before.
To no avail. Martin simply had no idea why he was stuck there, if he had died or been murdered or whatever or any important details that Juhoon could google about, like a last name or a possible car crash. Nothing at all.
Martin seemed pretty hopeless after their talk, a sad kicked puppy look into his eyes and Juhoon sighed, put his hand over Martin’s, who was still laying on the carpeted floor. “I'll figure it out, okay? I promise.”
Martin's eyes light up again. Juhoon looked away. Martin’s hand felt warm and solid under his own. He didn’t let go.
The thing is, Martin is so cute to be around.
When he gets super excited, things will start rattling around the house on a quick rhythm, cups and picture frames shaking, dangerously to fall towards the ground. When he’s sad, It’ll seem like there’s a cloud looming around, everything is dark and electronics won’t work properly.
But when he’s happy, oh. That’s the best. Martin’s laughter seems to fill every corner of the house, fill every little spot with a bright sunny energy that Juhoon has never seen or felt before. They are watching funny cat videos on Youtube and Martin goes insane about it, laughing until there’s tears on his eyes, until he’s rolling around the floor and Juhoon swears he feels the vibrations from Martin’s ribcage against his skin.
Juhoon’s smiling too.
“What are you smiling about?” Martin asks from where he’s laying on the floor, hair flat against his forehead.
You, he thinks. Instead, he says, “Nothing, you dumbass.” Embarrassed to have been caught.
Martin just smiles wider, gets up and jumps on him, and starts tickling him “well, now you’ll be smiling at something!”
Juhoon's heart flutters around his ribcage but he’s sure it’s because he’s out of breath from the tickle war.
A Catholic School, Somewhere in Seoul
He meets James on a Tuesday. Juhoon has always hated Tuesdays.
James is a weird guy. He’s not a teacher and he’s not a director, but somehow he’s part of the school board. He’s just an important local figure, apparently—whatever that even means—and he likes spending time at the local catholic school, searching and guiding the lost youngsters. He likes to tell a story about how he was lost too, a sheep without a shepherd, but under the lord, everything became possible.
Keonho would have a laughing fit if he knew he was going to catholic school. He’d burst out laughing right on his face and ask which one was his favorite saint so far.
Juhoon has absolutely no idea what the guy kept going on about in the auditorium at the first day of school, but he knew something weird was up when he already got called into the principal’s office ten minutes into his first lecture of the year.
He sighed, murmured an apology to the teacher, and walked towards where the administration part of the school was settled.
The thing is, it wasn’t the principal who wanted to talk to him. It was James.
“Look who we have here!” he exclaimed, quite excitedly. Juhoon looked around the room, survival instincts speaking louder, just in case he needed a way out. The window was on the second floor, but he wouldn’t die or anything if he needed to jump, just in case.
Turns out, he didn’t actually need to do anything drastic. James just kept going on and being cryptic, talking about the future and the past and spirits, giving anecdotes about sheep and snakes.
Juhoon was way too tired for this kind of shit that early in the morning, so he just tuned out and kept imagining what Martin was up to back at home. It was nice, kept him distracted. He even smiled once.
Back at Home, Somewhere in Seoul
Slowly and surely, Martin and Juhoon befriend each other.
Juhoon wasn’t sure what to do, or how to proceed. He had simply no idea. But Martin didn’t need to be told yes twice, and with the slightest opening he was already all over Juhoon’s life, giggling about some dumb joke or about how funny it was that Juhoon didn’t reach the tallest cupboards.
Martin always made things come down for him.
Juhoon has something to look out for when he gets home from school, and Martin feels pretty excited about which movie they’ll watch today (one thing they figured out is that Martin’s… accident was recent, because he knew technology and everything else of the sort. He even knew a lot about pop culture).
Juhoon didn’t wanna be friends with anyone, he just wanted to brood and nap—Keonho’s words, not his—but Martin wouldn’t let go. He’d appear under the covers with Juhoon on the sofa and finish watching narcos, or simply watch as Juhoon meddled around with domestic affairs.
It was nice, it felt natural. Juhoon wasn’t used to that. You give too much and it will feel weird, stiff, like something is extra and not meant to be there.
Some things you just need a little bit of extra time to get used to.
A Gas Station, Somewhere in Seoul
Because it’s just his luck, Juhoon already had a bastard chasing after him right after barely being in town for a couple of weeks.
He was walking home, even though it wasn’t even a five-minute walk, but he wanted to get acclimated to the neighborhood as soon as possible, when he decided to stop by a gas station to buy some chocolate and a bottle of water.
And what does he see inside?
Some dead asshole trying to steal a case of soda, just floating around. As if nobody would notice a twelve-pack of Coca-Cola cans flying on their own.
Juhoon sighed, walked in, closed the door loudly and yelled hey! out of the top of his lungs, which made the dude drop the cans on the floor before vanishing out of thin air, upon realizing he wasn’t alone anymore.
The cashier looks at Juhoon like he’s nuts and Juhoon shrugs, grabs his stuff and pays.
After a few times of doing this, you simply learn not to care about looking like you’re completely out of your mind.
Apparently, after realizing it wasn’t all alone, the ghost wanted to speak with Juhoon. It kept track of his body heat so when Juhoon went back where it was hanging out, it would know. And it did.
Juhoon had just gone out to buy a case of orange juice and a bunch of food—pasta, tomato sauce, frozen pizza, some meat, fruits. He was using the car even though he wasn’t technically allowed to drive. His mom said it was okay for emergencies. Food does count as an emergency on his books.
The ghost followed him out of the supermarket and kept it whisper-yelling “Hey!! You!! Come here!!!” from a very dark, very suspicious-looking alley. Juhoon sighs, eyes rolling back hard enough he could almost see his brain.
It goes as usual.
Not that Juhoon expected any different.
The guy was angry that he had died. Typical
Juhoon almost scoffed, instead he sighs.
“Listen,” he started, trying to look as menacingly as possible, “you will go to the afterlife. Now, I don’t know what’s in there, I'm not dead for fuck’s sake, but you can’t stick around here. That’s not how it works.”
“Says who?”
“Well shit, I don’t know. Ask god when you meet him up there, not me. I'm not a prophet, you stupid fucker.”
When the flying piece of wood came, Juhoon can’t say he wasn’t expecting it.
Juhoon ended up having to use the tomato sauce he bought from the gas station to conjure a pentagram and the frozen chicken as an offering so he’d be able to hastily open a portal and force the head of the ghost to the other side. Quite literally. He hit its head until the soft lavender light started to shine through, and then finished pushing it through with a final kick on its ass.
Juhoon steps away, admiring his work, watching the portal close on itself.
When he turns back, he realizes he’s not alone. His blood freezes on his veins, and he’s already opening his mouth to try and make up an excuse to what weirdly resembles at a poor attempt on a satanic ritual when—wait a fucking minute.
“James?” Juhoon questions, a bit bewildered, sweat and blood running down from his forehead. He wipes it off with the back of his hand, annoyed. He was hit on the head with a glass bottle, and it stings.
“Juhoon” James says, looking down at the dead chicken near his foot. He pokes it with his boot.
Juhoon stares at him.
James stares back.
Suddenly, James seems to be hit by lighting, because he quickly looks up and points a finger towards Juhoon.
“You should get out of here,” he says, nodding to himself, “before they arrive.”
Juhoon frowns.
“They? Who?”
“The cops, you bloody idiot! You made quite a ruckus here. But, don't worry, I'll deal with this mess. You go home. Your mother is worried.”
“How the hell do you even know that–“
“I simply know, Juhoon.”
Juhoon narrows his eyes.
“You’re full of shit.” He says, before turning around and leaving.
Home, Somewhere in Seoul
It's already over midnight and since his mom is still working day shifts so far, it leaves him with only one option. Getting in through the window so he could lie and say he got home pretty soon, that she just didn’t see him coming in.
It’s all going very well, no problem at all, until Juhoon trips over the bedside table and he sees it happening before it actually does, in slow motion.
Everything falls down, his phone charger hitting the floor with a loud bang, a scattering noise that is even louder in the silence of the night, a noise so sharp that it rings inside his ears for seconds after the lamp has stopped rolling around on the carpet.
Juhoon finally allows his body to move again, his thigh slowly working from the window stool, one step away from being fully inside the room when he turns his head up and a grimace appears on his face.
“This is not what it looks like.”
His mom is looking at him from his bedroom door, sleepily rubbing her eyes, like she knows this is exactly what it looks like.
She looks tired and confused and sleepy and Juhoon’s heart clenches with guilt because he didn’t choose any of this, he never wanted to see spirits or be chased by them. It wasn’t his choice. He’s very glad for the lights being out. He doesn’t want her to see him like this. It would only make things worse.
“Juhoon, please,” his mom says, her voice quiet as she approaches him. “I’m worried about you, you know.”
Juhoon hops inside the room and kicks the black backpack he had thrown earlier inside discreetly under the bed before walking towards her.
“Mom. I'm fine, I swear.” He reassures her, holding both her hands with his own.
“Juhoon, sweetheart—I know moving away from home was asking a lot from you, that it’s something huge. I know how you wish you had stayed with your friends and I'm sorry that couldn’t have happened, but please talk to me. I'm worried.”
Juhoon takes her in, and for a moment he thinks he should, maybe, tell her. He knows she knows about it to some extent. It’s impossible for her not to know, she was with him when it happened the first time.
But right now, her eyes are tired, there are deep bags from night shifts under them, and she looks sleep deprived and Juhoon can’t bear the thought of putting one more reason to worry upon her shoulders.
So he just smiles and nods, hugs her and says, “I’m okay mom, I promise.”
She hugs him back for a solid minute before leaving, closing the door softly behind her.
The moment it’s no longer open, Martin materializes in front of him and it truly does say a lot about Juhoon’s experience that he did not scream, not even a little bit.
“Is everything okay?” Martin asks, a worried look on his face.
Juhoon shakes his head as to answer a yes but winces when it actually hurts. He completely forgot he had gotten hit there.
“What happened to your head?” Martin asks again, stepping closer, lifting his hands up slowly so he can touch Juhoon’s forehead.
He's taller than Juhoon, by a lot, so Juhoon sort of has to look up to see his eyes. They look concerned, and the frown on his eyebrows is ridiculously cute. Juhoon curses under his breath, stepping away and going towards the other side of the room, so hopefully Martin can’t tell he’s actually blushing.
“Got into a fight. With one of your kind.” Juhoon answers, moving near the bed so he can strip off his dirty clothes. He smells like garbage.
“Is this the ones you talked about? The not so nice ones? The aggressive ones?”
Juhoon nods and takes his shirt off, his shoulders hurting a bit from when he got thrown against one of the trash cans.
“This guy was mad at me because I couldn’t bring him back to life.”
“What an asshole,” Martin says, appearing suddenly sitting on the bed, by his side, “it’s not your fault you can’t control life and death.”
Juhoon snorts, balling his clothes up and throwing them on the washing basket. “Well, tell that to him.”
It's quiet then, just Juhoon shuffling around the room, getting ready for bed. He takes a quick shower to get rid of the smell and puts on pajama pants, brushes his teeth.
He’s not sure what to do when he gets out of the bathroom and Martin is still there, now laying on the bed. Juhoon feels awkward. He doesn’t want to kick him out, but he also doesn’t know what to do.
So he settles for just shuffling under the blankets, covering himself up to his chin and staying there, staring at Martin despite the darkness.
It's silent again, and when Juhoon is almost falling asleep Martin’s voice brings him back.
“I don’t like that they hurt you,” he says, and Juhoon can tell, even without looking, that his brows are furrowed and his lips are pursed. “I care about you.”
Juhoon thinks it over—it’s nice that Martin worries, it really is, but at the same time, he can take care of himself. He’s grown enough, he’s been doing this for longer than Martin has been dead.
“Nothing bad will happen to me. Don’t worry, Martin.”
“I don’t want to see you hurt, though,” he says, still serious, but then with a much lighter tone, adds, “who will I watch TV with if you just show up dead someday?”
Juhoon laughs, choking the sound against the fabric in front of his mouth.
“I don’t know, some people say mom is pretty chill.”
Juhoon falls asleep like that, Martin on his bed with him.
He swears he feels their hands touching, but when he wakes up, he’s alone. He pretends he’s not upset by that fact.
There's another one like me at school, he sends that to Keonho—just because. And, well, because he doesn’t know how to feel about that.
wht d u mesn anthr 1 liek u
You illiterate fuck. And ugh, it’s this random dude, James. He’s like knighted or something, I don’t even know what that means
is this good or bad
Bro. I was hoping you’d tell me
maybe you could ask for tips? idk dude
I agree, awesome idea. Shit, he just rolled up to me on the sidewalk in his limousine. This is the kind of shit I'm talking about
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
The Sidewalk, Somewhere in Seoul
Juhoon is almost inside the school when a limousine stops right on his side and starts following him. He looks up from his phone, pockets it and sighs, stopping dead in his tracks and taking his earphones off. When he turns towards the car, the window is already opened and he can see James’ stern eyes and overly friendly smile on the window. The guy’s wearing a beige cardigan today, with a brown tie. Weirdly enough, he pulls it off.
“Good morning, Juhoon!” he announces, like it actually is a good day—news flash, it's not.
Juhoon didn’t sleep enough last night, he woke up late, his mom already went to work, and Martin was nowhere to be found.
“James” he says back. His face is closed off. The guy seems unaffected by this.
“How are you on this beautiful morning?”
Juhoon just stares at him. James coughs awkwardly.
“Actually, I'm here to talk about our little meeting last night—“
“Oh my god.”
“Yes, quite exactly. You see, some things didn’t go as…planned. An old enemy of mine is out and free to do whatever he wants now, because he escaped through the portal you opened.”
“Oh my fucking god,” Juhoon repeats again, before opening the limousine’s door and getting inside the car.
In James’ Limo, Somewhere in Seoul
“What do you mean, an old enemy of yours got out? What the fuck? This has never happened before!” Juhoon asks, quite angrily. He doesn’t want anything to do with this. Why do things just keep getting more and more complicated? Why is it always him?
James takes a deep breath and looks down, sort of like he’s embarrassed.
“It’s… complicated. We have a complicated relationship. He's not actually a ghost, but he’s not human either, and for motives that are really important and totally not relevant right now, I locked him there inside, so he wouldn’t do any more evil to this world.” James explains, looking calm again and unperturbed. “And I need your help because he’s here, right now, and he could ruin everything. He knows my energy by heart so he will sense me coming, but he won’t sense you. That’s why I need your help.”
Juhoon just stares speechless at him, like he can’t quite believe what he is hearing.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. I barely know you—I barely know you, and now you want my help to chase an enemy from your past because he can sense your ghost hunter energy or whatever. I can’t believe this.”
“Well, you were the one who set him free.”
“Which wouldn’t have been a problem if you hadn’t screwed things up first! Or if you weren’t there at all! He wouldn’t have escaped if he hadn’t fucking felt your energy there! He wouldn’t even have known there was a portal there at all.”
“Juhoon, I already told you he’s not a ghost—“
“Do I look like I give a shit?”
They both sit in silence after Juhoon’s words.
Juhoon's favorite strategy, avoidance, didn’t work this time.
It didn’t only not work, it also came back to bite him on the ass.
Not wanting to hear what James had to say only ended up screwing him over, because James’s ex lover slash enemy slash nemesis, ended up coming for them both. God knows how he knew about Juhoon, but he did. And he was merciless. He tricked them—manipulated the telephone electronic waves so he sent fake text messages to each of them, asking to meet each other at the school park with the water fountain at night.
The moment they stepped into the zone, it all seemed like it locked up all around them—like an electric field, or something of the sort. They couldn’t leave, couldn’t run away to get help or anything to end that bastard for once and for all. They were trapped, like lab rats and Juhoon has never been good at feeling caged.
Juhoon didn’t want to be there, he had nothing to do with it, he was just there as bait and he couldn’t fucking leave. Mr. evil was busy talking with James, yelling and throwing things at his head and Juhoon kept trying to find a way to leave, just to get the hell out of there.
“I can’t—I can’t focus with you running around!” Mr. evil suddenly yelled at him and Juhoon stopped dead on his tracks. “Stop moving!”
He saw James looking at him, eyes wide, hands reaching out as if he could stop time but the moment Juhoon realized, it was already too late. He could do nothing but watch the wooden bench coming into his direction, he couldn’t get away. It hit him full force on his chest, knocking him back and making him skip until his body hit a three.
He figures he got knocked out for a few seconds, because when he comes back, Martin is right in front of him, trying desperately to wake him up.
“Juhoon, please!” Martin is yelling, kneeled where Juhoon is laying on the ground with blood coming out of his mouth and his breathing coming out unevenly and shortly, a firm hand gripping his chest.
Juhoon tries to push him away, to get on his feet but he just can’t. His body won’t move, refuses to, like it was driven to the limit on its last drops of fuel and now it’s just this useless clump of meat and bones.
“Jju, please,” Martin begs again, voice teary and he grabs hold of Juhoon’s chin, forcing Juhoon to look at him, “Look at me.”
Juhoon looks.
Martin is staring at him, with his pretty eyes and his pretty face.
“I'm going to—I'm going to end this, Jju.” Martin says, and Juhoon’s body snaps tight, like someone just pulled his strings and he starts babbling.
“What? Martin, are you crazy?! You can’t.” But Martin just shuts up him with a kiss, tender and lovely, just like he always is, just like always.
“I've been…practicing, yeah? I wanted to protect you. I didn’t feel okay with you out there, with batshit crazy ghosts down your throat and you were on your own. In case something would happen, I could fix something. In case I had to go on my own. I can open a portal now, and honestly, I don’t know much about it, I won’t lie. But from what I've tried, it’ll suck everything that’s not from here.” He explains quietly to Juhoon, hands still holding Juhoon’s face, always so soft and open.
James and Mr. evil are still battling on the background, yelling crazy things at each other, something about the past and broken hearts.
Juhoon can’t believe he got caught up on a lovers’ spite.
“Martin, you can’t-“ Juhoon starts, but cuts himself off when he moves wrong while trying to get more support against the wall, something on his chest stings. “That means you’ll be sucked too. That means you’ll be gone too.”
Martin smiles at him then, and it was barely even a smile. He was holding back tears.
“I love you, okay? And I want you to remember this.” He bends down and kisses Juhoon for one final time before stepping away.
Juhoon doesn’t remember much after that, not really, because he did get his head knocked pretty good against the wall, but for as long as he managed to keep his eyes open, he saw Martin opening a big circle of light, the same soft lilac light right in front of him, where Mr. evil was.
All Juhoon heard before passing out was the yells and then the eerie silence.
When he wakes up again, he’s back on his bedroom, sitting on the floor, his back propped upon the wall.
The glass on his window is still broken, Martin is nowhere to be seen and Juhoon can still feel his lips tingling from their kiss.
He doesn’t know how long he stayed there on the floor, just hearing the wind come through the broken panel on his wall—trying desperately to hear something more, something that wasn’t there, anything that showed he wasn’t alone.
And yet, he was on his own.
He wanted to cry out of frustration, out of anger, how unfair it is that the only time he finally had something he was happy about, it slipped away.
Instead, he takes his clothes off and balls them up before shoving them inside a plastic bag and hiding it underneath his bed.
He falls asleep thinking about hazel eyes, blonde hair, and high-pitched laughs.
The next day, Martin is not around either. He was sure he’d come back. He was so sure of it, but Martin still isn’t here and Juhoon doesn’t know what to do. Ghosts aren’t supposed to go to the other side before finishing their mission on earth. Nothing changed for Martin, so why is he not back yet?
Juhoon broods and stays in bed all day and tells his mom he’s sick. He knows she doesn’t believe him but he also knows she pretends she does.
He doesn’t pick up any calls and keeps his head shoved under a pillow, trying to force himself not to cry.
He thinks maybe by the third day, the third time is always the charm, isn’t it?
Martin still isn’t back. The window is no longer open, his mom patched it up with some cardboard. The glass shards are no longer on the floor, either. Martin still isn’t there.
His mom is really, really worried. She asks what’s wrong, but he can’t tell her, there’s no way to explain this. So he just asks to be left alone and to not be bothered. He pretends he doesn’t see the sad look on her face as she closes his bedroom door.
After four days, Juhoon finally texts Keonho back. He’s still pissed off at James and plans to avoid him for the rest of his life if possible.
I’m okay, don’t worry
how am i supposed to not worry when i haven’t heard from you in days??? i texted your mom just to know if you were still alive
Juhoon feels guilty about this, he really does, but he couldn’t stand doing anything at all, he couldn’t, just couldn’t do it.
I’m sorry. Some really bad shit happened. James had an evil ex lover turned into enemy and it ended up killing Martin
ghost boy?
Yeah
shit. im sorry
shit juhoon im sorry
do you want me to come down?
No, it’s fine. I’m okay, don’t worry
no youre not
I will be
It’s okay, Keonho
When Juhoon wakes up again, Martin is in his bedroom.
Juhoon blinks, shakes his head, and Martin is still there, smiling and looking more real than ever. Juhoon tumbles out of bed, running towards him—he missed him so much, it’s out of this world.
He hugs him, hugs Martin tight and rubs his back, smells him, the same sweet soft smell still there, not having changed one bit. Juhoon’s eyes are closed shut and he’s holding so tight because he’s afraid if he lets go, Martin will slip away from him once again.
“Juhoon, listen—I can’t breathe.” Martin tells him and it does sound a bit strangled.
“Ghosts don’t need to breathe” Juhoon murmurs against his neck, refusing to let go.
“Juhoon, I'm not a ghost anymore.”
Juhoon immediately lets go but doesn’t step away, keeps close and looks at him like he’s crazy.
“What the hell happened? How can you be here if you’re not a ghost? You were dead, you can’t be here!” he asks, disbelief painted all over his face.
“I don’t really know. I was in a coma because of a car crash. I guess it’s because your mom was taking care of me on the ICU, and apparently she was talking about you a lot, like she just told me about you and stuff, because they say it’s good to talk with patients in a coma. I guess that’s why I was drawn to you, why I first ended up here. Maybe my first memory was your house and your family and you.” Martin said, both hands still holding Juhoon’s, and added dismissively, “And my bet is that true love’s kiss woke me up, or something. It’s all a blur, you know? I don’t really remember much.”
Juhoon seemed to be thinking it over, chewing on his lower lip, thumbs rubbing the skin on the back of Martin’s hands.
He ended up nodding and then smiling up at Martin. He smiled back.
“You saved me,” Juhoon says, feeling light and well for the first time in days. Feeling like things were finally, finally on their own place in days, “my hero.” Juhoon laughed and hugged him.
Finally, finally, feeling real for the first time.
“You look even prettier like this,” he mumbled against Martin’s ear, and he could feel Martin giggle against his chest, warm, alive, and happy.
He never wanted to let go.
And if it were up to him, he wouldn’t.